speed up my site

[the_whipple]

Can anyone help please, my website is playing havoc on me, firstly my site has a database with about 3000 active members and the database is running extremely slow, and also i must point out i built this site from scratch reading books, and am know trying to learn about possible mistakes i could have made, i realise know i havent optimized any of my graphics, considering my database is running slow would it at least help a little if i optimized the graphics while im finding out the database problem..

[txbakers]

what is your database? Probably Access.

Not a good choice with 3000 users.

That will bring a site to its knees.

[yowza]

Of course optimizing the graphics will help a little, but the database sounds like it is the main problem.

As txbakers said: you should change your database if it is Access.

Which database are you using?

[the_whipple]

thanks for the reply my site is using mysql

[Robino]

Have you tried adding some table maintenance? Look into this. Especially if you're updating large amounts of data.

[the_whipple]

Thanks for the quick response i do table maintenance once a week, my site is getting a lot more traffic but im worried that i will drive away new members because of the slowness of the database any other suggestions please

[txbakers]

I use mySql with over 4000 active users on a very complex data management web-based application with NO performance issues.

Perhaps you need to look at your table set up and what your select statements look like.

Also, are you destroying your objects when finished? Close your connections, set to null and set recordset objects to null as well.

[Strange]

Definetly optimize your graphics. That will help. But I agree with Robino.. try adding some table maintenace and also make sure your database is normalized.

[photon]

This may be a stupid question: do you have indexes on your tables?

[the_whipple]

yes my tables are indexed

[Shannon Moore]

For a good top to bottom review of ways you can speed up a website (mostly dealing with HTML, CSS and graphics), check out the following book. I'm about three-quarters of the way through it and it has proven useful to me... particularly for those of us with sites that have, shall we say, not "aged well" over time (code bloat; HTML that validated a few years ago but doesn't cut it now, etc.)

Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization
by Andrew B. King

In regards to database driven sites and slowness --
I'm not sure what kind of setup you're running, but some of the slowest sites I've seen run database-driven software with a lot of freeware hacks applied. Every hack is written and tested basically in a vacuum, if you will, and when applied together to the same forum or other software, huge numbers of additional MySQL queries get generated, hammering the poor DB and server to death. So make sure nothing you've done is causing an excessive load. I'm not a PHP or DB whiz (I know enough to get myself into the trouble I'm mentioning here, is all!), but if your software isn't home-grown and has some support forums, I'd check out what the high traffic sites recommend in the way of queries per page, and make sure you're AT or UNDER that amount on your own site.

Hope this helps...